“I’m so sorry,” she said again, barely able to manage more than a whisper. Then she ran too, leaving Matt alone on the driveway.
As she climbed the stairs to her room, her knees seemed to creak like an old woman’s, while her dreams crashed and burned, every single hope she’d ever had completely crushed. She’d been living in La-La Land. Rosie and Chi had warned her, but she hadn’t wanted to hear them. Maybe Chi was right, maybe Matt had only searched for her brother out of guilt for sleeping with her that first time.
Oh God. Her legs wobbled, and she thought she might actually fall. She should have listened to her best friends, but she’d wanted to listen only to her heart, so she had deliberately forgotten her cardinal rule about remembering the difference between fantasy and reality.
How many times would she have to learn the lesson that she was temporary—disposable at the first sign of trouble? Just like with all her foster families. Even with her own mother, Ari hadn’t been important enough to her to get clean.
In her room, she stuffed her laptop into her backpack and her belongings into her bag. She’d become so good at leaving over the years that she could pack up in less than five minutes. She supposed the reason she hadn’t brought more things to Matt’s home had been the deep-down belief that the dream wouldn’t last. The fairy tale wouldn’t actually come true.
Not for her.
She’d wanted to surprise Matt, and it had felt like the right time for Noah to learn. But in retrospect, there was no denying that she’d been wrong in not asking permission. Matt was Noah’s father. He had the right to make the decisions, not her. And now, on top of it all, she’d turned him into the bad guy, just as Irene had done when she’d left for Paris without her son.
She’d seen the way Matt reacted the day Noah had fallen by the pool, had felt his anguish as if it were her own. He still wouldn’t let Noah swim without the water wings, yet she’d removed those training wheels without a single thought. Partly because Matt hadn’t specifically mentioned them. But mostly because she’d felt secure in the knowledge that he felt the same emotions that she did.
How could she have been so stupid as to step over his rock-solid boundary with his son?
The echo of their voices drifted up from downstairs—Noah’s still upset, Matt’s still tight with fear that his son might have been hurt.
Ari closed her eyes, trying to blot out the pain. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered again, as if he could hear her.
Hands shaking, she wrote a note, agonizing over the words, then finally left it on her bed. He would find it.
And she knew he would be relieved that she was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Noah’s feet pounded out of Ari’s room a short while later, so heavily that the ceiling above Matt actually shook. He found Matt in the den where he was pretending to work. All he’d actually managed was brooding. Reeling. Trying to calm down so that he could think straight again.
“Daddy, Ari isn’t in her room.” Noah clutched a piece of paper. “Look.”
Matt’s heart was already in his throat, even before he took the note.
I’m sorry. I should have understood how you would feel. I wish you and Noah all the best. I hope you can forgive me.
He jumped up out of his chair and jogged down the hall, Noah on his heels, to check the garage. Her car was as gone as she was.
And the house suddenly felt completely empty with only him and Noah in it.
“Daddy, where’d she go?” Noah hung on his pants leg. “What’d she say in her letter?”
He hunkered down, running his hands along Noah’s arms. “Ari had to—” Damn it, he could already see what this would do to his son. “She had to leave.”
Noah’s face fell, and tears welled in his eyes. “You yelled at her and made her leave.”
He’d yelled. Just like his father. “Noah, you have to understand—”
“And I could ride the bike. I’m good!”
“I know you are, but—”
“You’re not fair! You never let me do anything fun!” He swiped at the tear trickling down his cheek, his bottom lip trembling. “I love Ari and you made her leave!” He fisted his hands, and Matt saw himself in his son, so clearly. Too clearly. “I love her and now she’s gone!” Then he ran upstairs. A moment later his door slammed.
Every word his son shouted pierced his heart. Especially when Noah repeated how much he loved Ari, forcing Matt to hear each word. He couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true.
How many times had Matt hid in his room while his father raged? On the day Noah was born, he swore he’d never put his child through that. As angry as he often became with Irene, Matt had never yelled at her in front of Noah.